DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHINESE 83 



Tsimg asked him one day, " If I were to make you chief minister of state, 

 what would you do ? " "I would change the customs and institute re- 

 forms/' Wang replied. 9 Thereupon the emperor formed a board of three 

 officials, whose task it was to investigate the condition of the country 

 and to suggest where improvement might be made. This board sent 

 out officers throughout the country "to report upon the nature of the 

 soil, where watered and where not, where it was rich and where it was 

 poor," and to give other information that might help to alleviate the 

 condition of the farmer. The outcome of this movement was the intro- 

 duction of four reforms: 



1. The first was a state monopoly of commerce. The commerce of 

 the country was to be carried on by the state instead of by the people. 

 The plan is briefly summed up by MacGowan as follows : 



The taxes for the future should be paid in the produce of the district 

 where they were levied, and the state should furnish funds to buy up what was 

 left. This should be transported to different parts of the country where a good 

 market could be found and sold at a reasonable profit. Thus would the state 

 be benefited and the poorer classes be saved from the oppression of the rich, 

 who had been in the habit of buying cheaply and selling at exorbitant prices. 



This reform included a scheme for state advances to cultivators of the 

 soil. The government loaned money to all farmers in the spring when 

 the seed was sown, and a definite sum of money was returned in the 

 fall by the farmers. These loans netted about two per cent, per month. 



2. The second reform was an attempt to equalize taxation. To this 

 end the country was divided into Fangtien, or square fields, one thousand 

 steps on each side, and the taxes on each were appraised in the ninth 

 moon, " according to the general average of the producing power of the 

 soil, which was divided into five classes according to its fertility. 10 



3. The third reform measure introduced militia organization. Every 

 ten families were organized into a group with a headman called a Pao- 

 chang; five such groups, or fifty families, were formed into a larger group 

 with a higher commander; and ten of the larger groups formed a district. 

 All homes having more than one son were obliged to give one in service 

 to the state. The members of the militia were allowed to remain at 

 home in time of peace, but when war or disturbance threatened they were 

 called out by the headmen. Modifications of this reform were later 

 used in the Ming and Tsing Dynasties. 



4. The last of the great reforms of Wang An-shih was that of provid- 

 ing for the construction of public works by means of a family tax. He 

 wished to remove the abuses that grew out of compulsory labor. His plan 

 was to rate the tax required in accordance with the property of the fam- 



9 J. MacGowan, "Imperial History of China," Shanghai, 1906, p. 383. 



10 John C. Ferguson, ' ' Wang An-Shih, ' ' an article in the Journal of the 

 North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 35, p. 72. 



